Providing information, education, and training to build knowledge, develop skills, and change attitudes that will lead to increased independence, productivity, self determination, integration and inclusion (IPSII) for people with developmental disabilities and their families.

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND--The 66-year-old British woman known in court
documents as "Mrs. Z" died last Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the High
Court removed an injunction keeping her husband from traveling with her to a
Swiss euthanasia clinic.

Zurich police announced that they have launched an investigation into
the death, which was reported to them by Dignitas, the non-profit organization
that assists people in legally killing themselves.

According to the BBC, Swiss authorities have been concerned by the
growing number of foreigners traveling to Switzerland to die. In 2000 only
three people from other countries came to Switzerland to commit suicide,
compared to more than 90 in 2003.

As of Sunday, police in England had not indicated whether Mr. Z would be
charged with a crime when he returns to the United Kingdom.

While Britain's Suicide Act 1961 makes it a crime -- with up to a
14-year prison sentence -- to help another to commit suicide, it is not clear
whether it is a crime to help a person to travel to a country where it is legal
to assist in a suicide.

Last Tuesday, High Court Senior Family Division judge Mr. Justice Hedley
lifted the court injunction, saying it was not up to the court to keep Mr. Z
from doing something that might or might not be a crime. It was now up to
police to decide whether Mr. Z is committing a crime, he said.

The BBC and The Times both noted that the widow of a man who killed
himself in Switzerland last year has never been charged with a crime.

Mrs. Z was diagnosed in 1997 with cerebellar ataxia, described as a
degenerative brain disease. She convinced her husband to come with her to
Zurich as she could not travel alone.

A British organization which promotes legalizing assisted suicide said
the high-profile case indicates it is time for the United Kingdom to pass
pro-euthanasia laws similar to those in Switzerland, Belgium and the
Netherlands.

More than 20 people have traveled from the UK to Switzerland to end
their lives in recent years.

In June of this year, an inquest found that Dignitas violated its own
rules and Swiss law when it allowed two such "suicide tourists" with
disabilities to kill themselves at its clinic. The inquest revealed that Robert
and Jennifer Stokes, who killed themselves in a Dignitas "death room" on April
1, 2003, did not have terminal illness. Mr. Stokes had "depression with
suicidal elements", and the couple worried that they might get placed into
separate nursing facilities if their health deteriorated.

Under Swiss law, those who seek assistance in killing themselves are
required to be evaluated to confirm that they have six months or less to live,
and that they have made a conscious, "rational" decision to die.

Disability rights groups have opposed attempts to legalize assisted
suicide and euthanasia, citing situations in which people with physical and
mental disabilities have been pressured to take their own lives, or have been
killed by others. Governments that have allowed assisted suicide have included
guidelines to restrict the ability of people with mental illness -- or who do
not have an incurable condition -- to receive help in dying.

Many experts on both sides of the issue agree that the practice of
assisted suicide is happening secretly every day in countries where it is not
legal.

The GCDD is funded under the provisions of P.L. 106-402. The federal law also provides funding to the Minnesota Disability Law Center,the state Protection and Advocacy System, and to the Institute on Community Integration, the state University Center for Excellence. The Minnesota network of programs works to increase the IPSII of people with developmental disabilities and families into community life.